Witnesses Describe Fatal Crash For Jurors

Two Easton police officers and a handful of eyewitnesses testified in Northampton County Court yesterday and painted a vivid picture of a 1981 traffic accident that killed a Nazareth couple.

Their testimony came in the trial before Judge William F. Moran Jr. of John C. Fliszar, 28, of Mount Bethel R.1, and the city of Easton. Fliszar and the city were sued by John R. Wunderly of Palmer Township, the son of Nelson and Leona Wunderly, who were killed in the Aug. 8, 1981, crash at 13th and Ferry streets.

Wunderly is seeking financial damages for his parents' deaths.

Fliszar, who served the minimum two years of a two-to-four-year Northampton County Prison sentence imposed in 1982 for two counts of homicide by vehicle, is representing himself at the trial. He has not asked a single question nor made a single objection.

Attorney Ronald Shipman is representing the Wunderly estate, and attorney Ronald Corkery is representing the city.

One of the witnesses yesterday, Carl John Bossert, 27, of Mount Bethel, received a warning from Moran after he left the stand.

Bossert, who was a passenger in the back seat of Fliszar's car, had told Shipman he didn't remember how fast Fliszar was driving. He also denied seeing a patrol car driven Easton Patrol Officer John C. Heidman, because he was too busy smoking and trying not to spill ashes in Fliszar's "immaculate" car.

Corkery then asked on cross-examination if Bossert drives. Bossert volunteered that his driver's license is suspended, and Corkery then said, "Didn't you drive away from here yesterday on a motorcycle?" Bossert agreed that he had.

Moran recessed the trial and sent the jury out of the room, telling Bossert to remain. Then he called the witness forward and said, "I advise you not to drive from this location without a license," and told Bossert he would tell the district attorney's office of Bossert's admission.

Heidman said that he and Patrol Officer Edward Zukasky were in their marked patrol cars in a gas station in the 1100 block of Northampton Street when they first heard, then saw, an army- or pea-green car drive east on Northampton Street at high speed.

Heidman led Zukasky out of the parking lot and followed the car, which turned right onto S. 10th Street. Zukasky drove east and turned right onto S. 11th Street.

By the time Heidman got onto S. 10th Street, the car had disappeared, but as he reached S. 10th and Ferry streets, he saw people looking west on Ferry Street and turned that way. He said he saw the car - which was driven by Fliszar - drive through a stop sign at 12th and Ferry streets "without even slowing down," and then lost sight of the car because of an incline in the road.

Heidman said he hadn't activated his overhead lights or the siren, because he knew he wouldn't be able to catch the car. He said he continued the pursuit only to get a make on the vehicle.

"He was driving with such abandon, someone was going to get hurt," the officer said, adding that Fliszar was accelerating all along Ferry Street.

Zukasky said that as he pulled to a stop at 11th and Ferry streets, Fliszar's car passed him on Ferry Street.

"It was little more than a blur at that time," Zukasky said. Fliszar "had to be doing above 60 miles per hour," in the residential section where the speed limit is 35 mph. He estimated Heidman's speed at 30 to 35 mph.

At 11th Street, Heidman saw the red traffic light at 13th and Ferry streets and saw the aftermath of the accident. Fliszar, in a 1964 Plymouth Fury, had run the red light and smashed broadside into the Wunderly's Chevette, just in front of the driver's door.

"The only comparison I can make is that it looked like something you'd see on the news, or a sports broadcast - a high-impact collision on a raceway," Heidman said. "It was like someone set a bomb off. There was debris flying through the air and one vehicle was pinwheeling west on Ferry Street."

Alan R. DiBona testified he was on the front porch of his parents' home in the 1200 block of Ferry Street when he heard Fliszar's car approach. It was accelerating from the time he heard it speed through the stop sign at 12th Street until the time of the accident, he said.

He saw the Wunderly car, with Mrs. Wunderly driving, enter the intersection, and then saw the crash. After the impact, he said, it was "very tough to see - there was smoke and dust and debris all over the place." But he was able to see that a parked car involved in the crash "was picked up off the ground . . . and pushed down the street."

He ran up the street to the scene. Mrs. Wunderly was wedged into the extreme back end of the hatch of her car, her head through the window.

He saw a person get out of the Fliszar car and stagger to the sidewalk on the south side of the street. Then he noticed someone get out of the driver's side of the car, and "I remember it so clearly. Even though he was injured, it looked like he was trying to run away."